A.C.E. by awerar

[raw]
made by awerar for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Welcome to the A.C.E. Testing Environment! Due to an unforseeable technical malfunction, your AI core has been reset. It's time for you to re-learn your problem-solving skills. In this simulation you will practice solving challenges by controlling a swarm of robots (note: not yet a swarm of robots). We have given you the ability to record and re-record paths for each robot, and freely skip around time to ease the strain on your computation cores. Good luck!

IMPORTANT: The controls for the game can be found in the pause menu triggered by pressing Esc in game

Bugfixes: Fixed a bug where boxes would behave unpredictably on playback.

Screenshots:

Screengrab<em>04.png Screengrab</em>05.png Screengrab_02.png

Ratings

Overall 222th 3.962⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 280th 3.808⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 473th 3.635⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 660th 3.75⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 4th 4.815⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 404th 3.283⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 128th 4.091⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 14🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

Herman Chau
06. Oct 2020 · 06:14 UTC
The graphics look great and once I got to the glitchy blocks the game made a lot more sense and became really cool!

In the beginning though, I had no idea how the controls worked and only eventually stumbled upon pressing ESC to display the controls. I think it would have helped to force display them at the beginning of the game.
Nikolai Shkurkin
06. Oct 2020 · 06:18 UTC
I tried to open the macOS application but all I got was "The Application A.C.E - Mac OSX.app can't be opened." Then if I try really hard I get "... because the developer cannot be verified." Let me know if you publish a newer version that world on the latest macOS. Cheers.
IndieQuest
06. Oct 2020 · 06:51 UTC
Beautiful textures and lighting.
The robot model is very nice.
Enjoyed playing!
Gonzalol
06. Oct 2020 · 06:52 UTC
The graphics and music are great. I think it's pretty hard to understand the controls at the beginning.
Manubown
06. Oct 2020 · 07:23 UTC
An amazing game, it reminds me of portal
AlexTagtal
06. Oct 2020 · 07:25 UTC
Strong portal vibes! Loved the idea and the puzzles, the graphics and sound effects are great. Not sure if I used the correct controls though, I found out that 'R' makes my cursor visible so I can click on things. A hotkey would be nice (unless there is one and I missed it.
Decipator
06. Oct 2020 · 07:28 UTC
Hey, this looks like a solid entry, graphics definitely had some love, sound is interesting but repetitive, UX need further thoughts.

UX felt a bit off, some key bindings could be further thought and reused on smarter ways, like the mouse interaction, usually you activate the mouse when press ESC, and if you second press ESC you go to the pause.

The play and rewind mechanic felt a bit hard to manage/understand (need to record, play, rewind, record again, play, rewind, record) I believe that most of this mouse interactions could be automated based on user behavior like it makes a path, if the user go back on it it is already rewinding or undoing it for example.

Took me a while to understand how to move/use the character, the tutorial panel on the same wall as me was strange, so I did not saw it right away, what felt a bit awkward.

Good idea overall :)
Linetaru
06. Oct 2020 · 11:44 UTC
I really enjoyed your game, the concept is very interesting and gives an interesting control.

The keys are not easy to take in hand at the first level then after we chain the levels when we understand.

The transition between the record and the move is not instantaneous so we lose a little time at certain levels.

Otherwise a good experience, fun and graphically very beautiful.
Somogy
07. Oct 2020 · 00:15 UTC
Awesome graphics! Great game!
coderTrevor
07. Oct 2020 · 02:22 UTC
I encountered a bug on level 7 (I think it was 7, the first level with three robots). I recorded a sequence for the guy who was at the top in a little room on his own, but when I tried the solution he didn't do what I had recorded at all. I had him pick up a box and run against the door until his buddy could let him out, then he was supposed to let the other guy into the room and drop off his box before going to the charging pad. I spent a lot of time recording the actions of the two others before I tried the solution, so when it didn't work I gave up.

The guy by himself was recorded running into the door with his box in his hand so when the door was opened he'd run through it. It worked when I was setting up everything but when I played the solution, he glitched through the door early, which may have messed up the rest of his playback. He then went over to the charging pad still holding his box. I hope you're able to replicate and fix this game-breaking bug because I really wanted to finish the game, but I'm not going to count this against you in terms of rating.

This is more or less a perfect jam game! The graphics are gorgeous, I liked the audio, the mood is good, and the gameplay matches the theme. The controls are a little bit overwhelming at first, and I don't think using the RMB to switch characters is mentioned anywhere.

Your game idea is really innovative and well-executed, and I'm super-jealous of your puzzle-design skills. Awesome job!!
Dodidouda
07. Oct 2020 · 08:05 UTC
Amazing graphics and textures! The lil robot is so cute!
TwoHands
07. Oct 2020 · 19:02 UTC
Wow actually really good Game. Nice graphics, nice mechanics, really good idea! I like it.
One bug I've found is that the timer and recordings sometimes don't get resettet if you hit the reset button. Sometimes if you don't stop the recording and reset the timer simply keeps running after the reset.
But anyways really nice Game!
Jarvisp99
07. Oct 2020 · 19:26 UTC
Great Graphics and shaders ... I Would Really want to get in touch with you guys....controls caught me up for a bit but then I figured that out.......Really a Great Game man....Really Enjoyed..
JoeDev
07. Oct 2020 · 19:29 UTC
Wow this is such a polished entry! The visuals and audio are fantastic, and there is so much juice squeezed into these little robots. The mechanics were also fun and satisfying to get right, although I did wish that the playback was sped up a bit (and maybe repositions your camera so you can see the whole thing?). But otherwise, fantastic
Alexey Erzyukov
07. Oct 2020 · 20:02 UTC
Awesome game!

Nice level design and music

Pretty robot :)

And interesting pazzle

Good job!
Malte Hedenstrom
07. Oct 2020 · 20:29 UTC
Thank you all for the feedback and kind words, we greatly appreciate it!

@alexey-erzyukov, @joedev, @jarvisp99, @twohands, @dodidouda, @codertrevor, @somogy, @linetaru, @decipator
@alextagtal, @manubown, @gonzalol, @indiequest, @nikolai-shkurkin and @herman-chau.
Kolkav
08. Oct 2020 · 07:03 UTC
The game has an amazing character design! Actually, all in-game assets are really cool, but the robot hand down is super cute! There are some small rocks in tutorial/controls section, but these are minor issues. Overall, awesome entry!
🎤 awerar
08. Oct 2020 · 08:57 UTC
@jarvisp99 you can contact us if you want through twitter @_nullref.
saurterrs
08. Oct 2020 · 11:46 UTC
Very cool and funny puzzle game. Reminds me of Portal and similar. Very liked how parallel robot work is done. Great job!
IndieRonin
08. Oct 2020 · 19:23 UTC
A very well made game, the graphics look really great and the mood is set easily. Keep up the good work!
Frigow
11. Oct 2020 · 12:08 UTC
It took me a while to get the hang on the controls (reminds me of the camera controls of Unity or UE4), but eventually I was able to progress in the game.
The glitchy blocks create great puzzles, the like of Braid now that I think about it.
The cell shading robots are also very adorable.
Great job!